


the hunger, the everlasting hunger

by JennaCupcakes



Series: The Terror, but with Zombies [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sharing a Bed, Zombies, accidentally making out with your frenemy for comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23416144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaCupcakes/pseuds/JennaCupcakes
Summary: After the carnivale, the dead around Erebus rise.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Series: The Terror, but with Zombies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1691767
Comments: 26
Kudos: 57





	the hunger, the everlasting hunger

**Author's Note:**

> My terror bingo square said 'just live men or dead men' and my lizard brain went ZOMBIES! Reader, I had never written a story about zombies before.

First light has come and gone, as fiery and red as the fire whose smoke still clings to James’s clothes, and still he stands on the ice, when Crozier takes his arm.

“I need to talk to you.”

James is not to be moved, not easily at least. He remembers the heat, the inferno of flames that had engulfed them all like his worst vision of hell, but it seems like even hell has nothing on the ice that surrounds them. It still stands fast, its shapes grotesque and haunting, mocking James in its perseverance.

 _You thought you could best me_ , it seems to say, _but I am made of stronger stuff_.

He’s anthropomorphising the ice now. That surely isn’t a good sign. Though, coming to think of it, is anthropomorphising really the right word? Or does that apply to animals? He doesn’t know, and he wouldn’t know who to ask now.

The tug at his arm again, more insistent.

“James, come with me.”

This time, he lets himself be led, picks his way through the darkness. It was their constant companion for months, but one glimpse of sun has erased his stomach for it already. They’re not meant to be creatures of the dark, humans, and James knows this; thought he could fend the everlasting darkness off with masks and dances around the fire like his ancestors might have. They must have succeeded, for him to be here, but maybe they knew a different darkness.

One that wasn’t quite so hungry.

“There is an issue.”

In his cabin on Erebus, James is waiting for the sound of whiskey being poured before he remembers. Pity, he thinks. He could have used a drink now.

“I can’t imagine anything that could make this situation worse.”

Francis laughs. It’s strange, the sounds James has come to describe as laughter here. He doesn’t think he’d recognise a real laugh anymore if he heard it.

“Then prepare your imagination, my friend.”

There’s something odd about Crozier that’s more than just the lack of drink but James – who’s had plenty of the stuff during the celebrations and can now feel it settle in his back teeth and between his temples, heavy and sluggish like ice melt – cannot place it. Crozier wouldn’t have called James his friend two weeks ago, but a great many things have changed since then. Crozier looks older, but he also looks younger – older in his face, perhaps, but younger in the way he carries himself.

Crozier makes sure that James sits, and James again wishes desperately for something to occupy his hands with, to hide their shaking. Crozier seats himself opposite of James, in this cabin that is as off-kilter as their lives have become.

“We’re going to have a problem shortly. Or at least that is very likely.”

James can think of a number of problems already on their plate, and a growing number of not-quite-problems that have the potential to turn into real problems if not tended to. But he gets the feeling Crozier means none of those things.

“There are too many dead men out there.”

James knows this. James feels responsible for every single one of them. It is almost cruel of Francis to remind him, and in such a callous manner. James swallows.

“Francis, please…”

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner, but Sir John… I believe he was disturbed by what happened on Beechey. You must understand, even Doctor Stanley was shaken.”

Dread ties a neat little knot in James’s stomach; the telltale tingling sensation of the blow about to hit, the sword about to fall. He sits up straighter, as though he can brace himself for the impact. Francis is speaking of a secret, something Sir John kept from him, and it shouldn’t rattle James anymore. But it does.

Francis balls his hands into fists on the table. He still looks as unhappy as he did before, except now his cheeks don’t flush as much, so on his face the anger mixes with cold dread.

“We do not know how, but the men… well, I have no other words to describe it. They came back to life.”

“How do you mean?” James asks, even though Francis has made his meaning very plain. It’s his mind that doesn’t want to follow where Francis’s words lead him.

“On Beechey. The men who died. Before we could bury them, they came back to life.” He pauses. “David Young, too.”

Francis takes a deep breath that rattles through his lungs. James waits for him to compose himself.

“They were not the same. They were… empty, ghoulish, a mockery of life, really.”

One last pause, the effort of relaying the story so plain on Francis’s face.

“And they were hungry.”

James has read his share of ghost stories. He had his fill of them when he was a child. In his later years at sea he listened to the tales spun by sailors of the _zonbis_ of Haiti, and he had read Frankenstein with a sort of dark, shuddering pleasure. But their allure was always this: they were stories, and when he closed the book or when the sailor finished his story, James could console himself with the fact that the creatures described in them were confined to them, and that God the creator did not seen it fit to lose such horrors upon His people. There is life, and there is death, and that is one impermeable boundary that cannot be crossed. The undiscovered country, as Shakespeare said, from whose bourn no traveller returns, is one absolute certainty in their lives, as cruel as it sometimes seems.

“You can’t be serious, Francis.”

James wants him to say it’s all a joke – a dark one, in poor taste, but James would forgive him for it.

“I am very serious, James.”

He gets up, clasps his hands behind his back and looks more the Captain than he has in months.

“I have already ordered all men onto Erebus. A precaution. I do not know what will happen tonight, but I fear…”

He trails off and turns to face James. “Do you believe me?”

Two weeks ago, James would not have believed him. But the Francis Crozier that stands before him is a changed man, one who pulled himself out of the depths of human depravity by the sheer force of his conviction. Here is a man risen.

“I believe you,” James says, and is surprised at the force behind his own words. They lock eyes.

“We must convene a meeting of the officers, then. We don’t have much time.”

“If…”

It’s hard for James to say the words, still. But he believes Francis, and all the implications of the things Francis has told him.

“If what you say is true, what do we tell the men on watch?”

“We’ll see to that after we speak to the officers.”

The set of Francis’s jaw tells James he has already thought about this and found the thought equally disturbing. There are men they knew out there. All of them are men they knew.

Francis clasps James’s shoulder as he walks past him to call on Jopson to convene a meeting of the officers. The touch surprises James. It is steadfast, like a ship’s mast. It orients him, like a compass.

“I know,” Francis says, and James wonders what it is he knows.

* * *

Lieutenant Little looks like he will be sick. James can’t fault him for it.

“I am sorry for keeping you all in the dark about this for so long,” Francis is in the process of saying, and James at his side has the good fortune of being able to use that time to gauge the reaction of the officers. Even Thomas Blanky looks surprised, and that’s not a look James thought he’d ever see on the man’s face.

“We thought it best not to cause… unnecessary panic over something we thought a temporary phenomenon.”

“Who knew about this?” Blanky says. His forehead is creased, and James can nearly guess the thoughts going through his head, because he thought the same not half an hour ago.

_It’s not a pleasant feeling, to be left in the dark._

“Only myself, Sir John, and Doctor Stanley,” Francis answers calmly.

“Damnit Francis,” Blanky mutters.

“Time is of the essence now,” Francis continues, and James marvels at the steadiness of his voice. “This is going to be a long night. We need to tell the men, because I fear there will be no explaining away what they might hear or see tonight. And then there are the men on watch.”

Dundy looks over at James. He’s known him long enough to know Dundy is looking for reassurance, and apparently, he doesn’t yet trust Francis enough to take his word for it. James hopes he is wearing the mask of calm convincingly. It helps that Francis at his side is solid. James can draw on that.

“Captain,” Lieutenant Little says, “You say it will be a long night. What happens afterwards?”

Francis nods. “It seems they cannot walk in sunlight. They shun it, like we shun the darkness, so we will bury them at the next sunrise. That should put them to rest.”

Lieutenant Irving crosses himself. His hand is shaking.

“It’s going to be a long night,” Francis says again, and then looks at all of them in turn, even James. James feels bare under his gaze, but not exposed. He feels known and accepted, not in spite of everything he is but because of it, as though Francis can see it all. “Let’s see to it that we survive it.”

* * *

James changes out of his costume into some proper clothes and a coat; and follows Francis on deck. He listens closely for any sign of life from the ice, but all he can hear are the heavy footfalls of sailors on deck, and the tireless groaning of the ice.

“They are not very fast. Mostly they are attracted to movement, so when you spot one, it’s best to keep still, though Doctor Stanley had a theory that they retained some sense of smell as well.”

The men take Francis’s news well, all things considered. After a night such as this, anything seems possible.

“Their first and only instinct seems to be a primal hunger.” Francis grimaces briefly. “If that is not satisfied, they will start devouring each other.”

He does not say how he knows. James is beginning to understand better and better why Sir John was so shaken he ordered this revealed to no one. For a man who believes so firmly in the resurrection of Christ, to see these ghouls make a mockery of it must have been a heavy blow.

Francis instructs the men to call for help at the slightest sign of trouble.

“In this instance, we cannot be too careful,” he imparts upon them, and they nod solemnly. Under the strange, lightless sky of the Arctic, the thought that the dead should rise from their graves is no longer improbable.

Belowdecks, the sell is a harder one.

The men laugh, waiting for Francis to announce it is all a practical joke, much like James had. When Francis doesn’t flinch, doesn’t give the slightest hint that he is joking, their smiles flicker out one by one. Then they simply look small in their soot-stained costumes. Francis takes note of this with a grim satisfaction, then, when that is done, asks James if he may intrude upon his time a little longer.

“Since we appear to be stuck here for the night, and I do not have a cabin.”

James informs him that it would be no trouble, and that it is better not to be alone on a night such as this anyway. Francis looks at him, then, a moment of respite in what has become the strangest possible fallout from the carnivale. James feels something shift, like dropping an additional piece of weight on a scale and watching it swing into balance.

Francis steps up to him.

“Then I am grateful for your hospitality.” He steps back again. “I will be with you in a little while. I only want to make sure Lady Silence is receiving treatment.”

The image of Silence with blood streaming down her front and the haunted expression of her eyes flashes through James’s mind. He already knows how this will go – he has seen enough terrible things to know how the images will haunt him, and that nothing will stop them once the floodgates are opened. When Francis is gone, James goes to lie on the berth in his cabin and closes his eyes until he is swimming amid a sea of impressions in flickering red and orange.

His contemplation is disturbed some ten minutes later by a knock on the door of his cabin. Francis stands in his doorway, looking less the Captain than when James had bid him farewell before. It seems he is finally allowing himself to let the exhaustion show.

“It’s started,” he says by way of a greeting, and when James frowns he puts a finger to his lips. James strains his ears to hear beyond the ever-present noise of the ship, the creaking and the steps and the muffled voices, and when he succeeds, he wishes he hadn’t, because he is sure he will never forget the sound again.

The low-pitched moaning could easily be dismissed as a particularly pernicious wind, winding its way through hollow places, except one can almost make out _words_ in the howling that surrounds them. Then, there is the scrabbling, like a hundred rats are scurrying over the wood of the ship, except it’s coming from the hull, and James realises it’s not rats but hands and fingernails he is hearing.

He shudders.

“They have it in hand on deck,” Francis says firmly, then sits down on James’s chair. James remains on his bed, too paralysed to give in to the restlessness in his bones.

 _A long night_ , Francis said. But the night lasts for most of the day here.

James looks back at Francis. He wonders if the man feels some of the insecurities plaguing James right now. Does he ever wonder if they will survive this? Or does he simply do what has to be done, until it is done, and then takes on the next task?

A memory crosses James’s mind, and he hears himself chuckle. Francis, disturbed from his meditation by the sound, gazes at James. His face is less guarded now, James notes. Francis allows himself to let some of his curiosity show, as one would among equals.

“What is it that has you find humour in this situation, James?”

“Something you said, a long time ago.” James shakes his head. “You know, you always appeared to me as doomsayer, before the first winter. Before I realised you were Kassandra.”

Francis humours James through his excursion, and that alone is proof for James that Francis is a changed man. He has never shown such patience for the way James’s thought wander before.

“But you said back then that the only important distinction, the only measure of our success would be that between men who lived, or men who died.” He chuckles, again. “It seems in that, at least, you have been proven wrong.”

Francis frowns, no doubt trying to recall a conversation from over a year ago. “I feared losing men for precisely that reason. I couldn’t in my wildest dreams imagine it would be this bad.”

A particularly loud thump, reverberating through the wood, makes them both flinch. They are beyond the pride of pretending for each other that such things do not bother them. Two Captains could be fearful in each other’s company, could they not? A man must find his solace somewhere, after all.

Still, they look at each other guiltily for scaring so easy, then snort out a laugh. It is bone-deep relief, exhaustion, and the smell of smoke that is still clinging to them all mixed into one; and Francis leans forward and clasps James’s forearm in a comforting gesture. It is the second time he has touched James today.

With the screams of the dead outside louder than the ticking of their clocks, time passes.

* * *

“Why do you think this is happening?”

They’re into their fifth hour, and James’s eyelids are heavy but every time he’s close to drifting off, a wail or thump or scratch will scare him from the comfortable calm his body has lulled him into. So he turns to conversation.

“Why?” Francis repeats, and he is not yet well, it’s becoming more and more plain with each passing hour that deepens the shadows under his eyes.

“What wakes them. Why now? Why here?”

James thinks again of the stories the sailors told him. Of spirits who were refused passage to the afterlife, who came back as slaves to some dark master. Could it be a sign? No passage, for none of them?

“I don’t know,” Francis says, and in his voice, James doesn’t find any of the urgency he himself feels.

“Are you not the least bit curious?”

Francis shrugs. “Why it happens is less important than how we deal with it, in my opinion.”

“Ah, but the _why_ may hold the key to unlocking this mystery,” James counters, “Therefore, my question.”

Francis grants him that point with a contemplative nod.

They lapse into silence again, or as much silence as there still is. Every two hours or so, Francis will walk a round through the ship, to reassure the men. They are all of them pale now, and no one is laughing anymore. But they rise at the sight of their Captain.

James stares at the wall in front of him, and suddenly feels quite trapped within his own ship. Everything here wants to kill them, but he has never felt it so acutely – how small the space is that affords them safety, and how terrible everything is beyond it.

“I think God has abandoned us, Francis.”

Francis looks over at James, surprised.

“And how would that change what you are doing, if it were the case?”

The frown on his face carves a deep crease into his forehead. Francis’s face is quite expressive when he doesn’t guard it so closely, James realises. It is a face that tells stories, more than enough for one lifetime already. And yet he is here.

James frowns, in turn, and meets Francis’s eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“Are you a maiden in need of saving, James Fitzjames?” Captain Crozier asks, taunting James with the voice he uses to whip sailors into shape. “Or are you a man who takes his destiny into his own hands?”

It startles James, the authority in his voice. Nothing at all like the drunken fits of rage that undermined him more than they made him feared. Francis Crozier is a man worthy of his Captainship now.

Then Francis’s gaze softens looking at James.

“Even if God is not with us out here, there’s still me to look out for these men,” he says, “To look out for you.”

James holds Francis’s eyes for as long as he can, but soon finds he cannot stand the new man he sees in them. Francis, unmarred by drink, is too much for James. There is honesty in those eyes, and the gentle care and iron will of a man who does not fear the kinds of things other men fear. James looks down at his hands, long-fingered and dried out from the cold. He thinks of how Francis reached out to him and wishes he could do so with the same ease.

He thinks again of scales, and of the strange balance they have reached.

If they are beyond God, then who should judge him? Who would weigh his deeds against him, if the very laws of nature have become upended?

When he looks back at Francis, he finds Francis is still watching him.

He should say something, that is often the good way to go about these things. He should mention the change he has observed in Francis, and how glad he is to see it. How afraid he was for him, and how that fear – despite the terror surrounding them – has turned to joy to see Francis so well again.

James has oftentimes, during notable moments of his life, let instinct overtake what he knows to be the proper way to go about things. In the spirit of these ill-advised decisions, he kisses Francis.

As impulsive decisions go, this one takes a fair bit of manoeuvring of James’s body in the tight, cramped space of the cabin. He swings his legs over the edge of the bunk, then finds Francis is too far below him and takes a firm hold of his vest to drag him upwards while James leans down and plants his lips on Francis’s.

Francis makes a surprised sound, both at being manhandled without warning and at the kiss, but before James’s good sense can catch up with his decision-making, Francis has reached for him and dragged James down into his lap. James gasps a little at that.

His foresight instructed him how to proceed until this point, but now that he has reached it, he is unsure how to proceed. It seems clear that Francis has no complaints, which would be more of a revelation to James were he not tired beyond belief and giddy with the sensation of a warm mouth on his, as well as terrified of what is waiting for them outside the ship. Francis is substantial under James’s hands, and that is something James is loath to give up. So he doesn’t.

When Francis does eventually drag his lips away from James’s, he rests their foreheads together. He chuckles, then, short and self-conscious. James feels himself blush at his own forwardness.

“I’m sorry, I…”

He licks his lips, tries to come up with words that will let him salvage the situation _while he is still sitting in Francis’s lap_ , Lord help him. His prick is half hard in his trousers and he wishes desperately for it to go away, to maintain at least a modicum of dignity. He hasn’t been touched in years. Hasn’t touched anybody like this for longer than that.

“James, for the love of God, if you apologise now–”

Francis doesn’t seem to know what to say either. There is some of his trademark anger in his words, that cantankerous nature of his that wasn’t all the drink, only the worst of it. In the syrup-yellow lamplight, Francis’s blush is less obvious than it would be under full sunlight, but sunlight they do not have to spare up here.

James is terrified, and so is Francis. It’s only natural, James reasons, that they should reach for comfort where they can find it. A man must find solace somewhere.

And so James musters up the courage to kiss Francis again.

It’s less awkward now that he’s learned the angle and doesn’t have to kiss Francis like he’s afraid he’ll be cast off any second. It brings a different kind of heat to the kiss, not a blaze like the carnivale tents but the sustained heat of a well-stoked fire, one that can burn for hours without burning itself out. This close, Francis smells like smoke and sweat. If James keeps kissing him long enough, he might begin to associate the smell with Francis rather than his foolish idea of a celebration. He certainly does his best to try.

Francis’s excitement becomes apparently rather quickly as well. There is enough adrenaline coursing through James’s body to keep him up for a day now, his heart is beating fast, and he is out of breath as though he had just run all the way from Terror to Erebus. He does not have the courage to take this any further, though he is beginning to realise he wants to.

A dull thud rings through the cabin. They both jump at the sound, which breaks their kiss long enough for James to catch Francis’s eye and silently ask him what they are doing here. He’s not sure he’s doing a good job of it – he can only imagine how he looks now, with his lips wet from kisses and his eyes wide, out of breath and looking to all the world like the very picture of sin.

Perhaps Francis is experiencing a similar moment of self-doubt, because something in his face shifts. Hardens.

“James…”

He trails off. What is there to say? They can spin as many tales as they want, but their bodies speak their own language, as do their actions.

James gives a half shrug. He is not going to apologise, not anymore, but he will get up and leave Francis the cabin if that is what he will ask.

“I do not deserve this, James,” Francis says, which is not what James was expecting.

He looks at Francis and sees the world-weariness again, the dark shadows under his eyes, the signs that this man can achieve anything he sets his mind to. James has never seen a man more determined, and that is including his own seemingly insatiable ambition. And yet Francis would count himself unworthy? It is James who should feel unworthy, to come to Francis looking for comfort and so quickly turn to nothing but base desires.

James takes Francis’s face between his hands.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he says, but he waits a heartbeat to see the crooked smile on Francis’s face before he kisses him again and Lord, apparently Francis was holding back before. He makes a grab for James’s hips this time – _oh_ , no, _lower_ – and pulls James flush against him. James shudders as he feels Francis press against him, and his breath quickens again. He’d been so cold not five minutes ago; now his ears are burning, and he is sweating under the many layers custom and necessity would have him wear. He wishes desperately to part with at least a few of them but is afraid of breaking the spell of the moment, this fervour that has taken possession of Francis and him.

He closes his eyes when Francis ruts his hips up against him, presses his lips tightly together, breathes out heavy through his nose. Francis under him is shaking like a man lost out on the ice.

There is plausible deniability in rutting against each other like that. James can hide his face in the crook of Francis’s neck, and Francis can close his eyes and tilt his head back when James places gentle kisses along his jaw. It feels like they are treading a line, and James thinks of scales again.

Francis’s breath quickens as he nears his release and he gasps out his desperation into James’s mouth. James feels him go rigid under him, then shudder as his entire body is taken with pleasure. To feel Francis so intimately drives James wild, and he brings a hand down to help along his own release when he feels Francis’s hand reach for the same goal.

Their eyes meet.

“May I?” Francis asks. His voice sounds hoarse, dark like something sinful, except it lights up every nerve in James’s body. James feels his mouth go dry. He nods.

Francis’s fingers are water to James’s parched body. James ruts against Francis’s hand, his hair falling in his face and he no longer cares how desperate or depraved he looks. All he cares about is Francis’s hand on his prick and the other one on his neck, carding through the shorter strands there as James whines through his teeth.

His release is almost painful in its intensity. He jerks violently against Francis’s hand, wraps both arms around Francis and the chair to keep himself upright and bites his tongue to keep from screaming. To feel a human touch again after so long is more than he can stand, and to have it be Francis – this strange man, this steadfast man, this new man whom James admires so very much now – overwhelms James.

Francis lets James catch his breath. Sound returns slowly over the rushing of blood in James’s ears. Next, the awareness of the cold around them settles back in.

“I do not have spare clothes on Erebus,” Francis declares apologetically, “Nor do I believe any of yours will fit me.”

James laughs at the image. “You would look quite ridiculous.”

He finds a washcloth for Francis, and Francis strips from the waist down in an attempt to salvage his soiled clothes. James does not know whether looking away or staring is the better choice – to look away after what they have done may seem prudish, but to look feels invasive. James settles on busying himself with his own clothes, changes for the second time that night. Still, he cannot help but catch a glimpse of Francis’s legs, their shape alluring to James even after his desire has been sated. He is glad Francis does not catch him looking.

Francis checks his watch. “We’re halfway through,” he declares.

For a moment, James has quite forgotten what is going on around them. It all comes back with the force of a sledgehammer.

“I should go check on the men again. Make sure everything is alright.”

His pants are still wet. If he goes out into the cold like this, he will surely freeze. James feels a surge of protectiveness seeing Francis stand in his cabin half-naked, the worry-lines on his face less visible than ever.

“I’ll go,” James says, “You should try to get some rest.”

Francis looks like he wants to argue, on principle alone, but it’s hard to stand on principle when one isn’t wearing pants, and so he relents. James insists he take the berth – “I couldn’t sleep, anyway” – and then puts on his coat and mittens before he heads out.

Most men are asleep now, and those that aren’t are trying their hardest to find some semblance of rest. James understands both the desire to rest and the inability to do so and gives the few men he passes with their eyes open encouraging nods. Some return them, others don’t.

He takes a deep breath before he heads up the last ladder into the cold arctic air.

It always hits him like running into a glass wall, the cold so strong it stuns him. He sees Tozer on his post, with his eyes fixed firmly on the dark outside the ship. When James turns, he sees the darkness writhing.

The sight instantly makes him nauseous, though it’s hard to make out individual shapes, let alone shapes that are human. But there is movement out there, no doubt.

He steps up to Tozer.

“Any trouble?”

Tozer shakes his head. “None so far. We’ve blockaded the stairs, and they can’t climb very well.”

James nods. That, at least, is a small mercy.

“How are the other men holding up?”

“Outstanding, Sir,” Tozer is quick to say. James would like to ask him for the courtesy of an honest answer, but he understands that this is a charade they must both play. The men will pretend to be brave in front of the Captain, and he will pretend to be brave in front of them.

“Very well. Carry on!” He instructs before heading downstairs again. More men are stirring now, no doubt he woke some of them when passing through on his way up. They look at him with big eyes; all of them, no matter their age, looking so young.

“All is well,” he says, and he tries to put the confidence of the man he would like to be into his voice, “All is well.”

* * *

Francis is lying on James’s berth, the blanket drawn to his chin when James returns. James thinks him asleep, but Francis stirs when James takes of his coat. Of course he wouldn’t sleep, James thinks, not until he’s heard a report.

“I think we’ll make it through,” James says, then reaches for Francis’s hand on impulse. Francis looks at him for a moment with a puzzling expression, then gives a brisk nod of his head.

“Come in, there’s room enough for two, and I’ve already inconvenienced you enough.”

James doubts there is room for two in a berth that has trouble accommodating his long limbs alone, but Francis and he make it work like puzzle pieces. It’s certainly warmer than usual, which is a welcome change. Still, James thinks he will never be able to sleep like this, unaccustomed to sharing a bed with someone as he is.

The next thing he remembers is the discrete knocking of Mister Bridgens to inform him that sunrise is upon them in an hour.

* * *

The sight that is revealed under the timid, orange glow of the first Arctic sun is the stuff of nightmares.

The corpses are strewn around the ship, some of them still half propped up against it in their attempt to climb it. Most all are mangled in some way, limbs missing, bite marks on their bodies. Their faces are often, blessedly, beyond recognition.

The men work quickly, even quicker than could be expected after a night of little sleep and many worries. James catches sight of Doctor Goodsir examining one of the bodies, and strides over to him.

“I only wish we had more time to examine them. We might come to understand the phenomenon better.”

James puts a hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “Perhaps when we’ve made it out of here, hm?”

Goodsir nods, a pained smile on his face. James often wonders how a man with such a soft heart came to be one of the hardiest men on their voyage. The Arctic brings out many surprising characteristics in the men, it seems.

James catches sight of Francis, then, who is putting his back into digging one of the graves. He looks rugged, like a workman, nothing Captain-like about him except the way in which he holds himself when he straightens up and looks at James.

James raises a hand in greeting. Francis nods in acknowledgement. James, once more, thinks of a pair of scales in perfect balance.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on tumblr as [veganthranduil](https://veganthranduil.tumblr.com/). If you've enjoyed this work, you might also enjoy screaming at me in the comments or on my tumblr about The Terror, because I'm obsessed.


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